With the emergence of IP application servers, it has become desirable to use such servers to provide advanced features to telecommunications subscribers. One feature that it may be desirable to provide is call jumping. Call jumping refers to the ability to transfer an in-progress call from one phone to another phone without dropping the call. For example, a subscriber who initiates a call from his or her office phone may desire to transfer the call to his or her mobile phone in order to continue to call when the subscriber leaves the office.
Call jumping is currently available for inbound calls. That is, a subscriber who receives a call can elect to jump the call to another phone and continue to call from the other phone. However, it is believed that current networks do not allow call jumping from an outbound call. That is, the calling party does not currently have the capability to jump the call to a new destination.
Another shortcoming of existing services is combining call jumping with other features, such as remote phone. Remote phone is a feature that allows a subscriber to provision one phone, such as the subscriber's mobile phone, to masquerade as another phone. For example, a subscriber may desire to have all calls directed to his or her office phone ring on the subscriber's mobile phone. Outbound calls from the mobile phone will appear to called parties as if the calls are made from the subscriber's office phone. Once the subscriber has the remote phone feature activated, the subscriber may desire to implement inbound or outbound call jumping from the remote phone. It is believed that current call jumping implementations do not provide this capability.
Accordingly, in light of these difficulties associated with existing call jumping solutions, there exists a need for methods, systems, and computer program products for flexible call jumping.